Parents narrowly avoided a prison sentence as it was acknowledged by a Judge that there were unusual features in this case, one being that the parents had made efforts to see professionals with a number of visits to GPs and at a SureStart centre.

Southampton's Local Safeguarding Children's Board have said that an independent learning review will now be undertaken. This will examine what went wrong, where opportunities to intervene and support the family were missed, and what can be done to prevent any such cases in the future.

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PARENTS who neglected their daughter to the point where she was described as smelling like "rotting meat" have narrowly avoided prison.
The pair were today given suspended sentences after being found guilty by a jury of cruelty to a child by neglect following a three week trial in January.
They were found not guilty on the same charge for a younger child.
Southampton Crown Court had heard how the older child was found with infected sores on her scalp, her hair moving with infestation of head lice and she was smelling so bad it was likened to "rotting meat".